The Art of Praising the Prophet: An Interview with Al-Anwar Al-Muhammadiyya Nasheed Group

Interview By Khalid Lazaar

MultiMedia: Watch Video Performance of Al-Anwar Al-Muhammadiyya at Muslims of America Conference, Seattle, WA. May 2005.

All praise is due to Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful, the Cherisher of the worlds. May peace and blessings be upon the most virtuous of all creation, the Seal of the Messengers, Muhammad. May mercy be upon his family, companions and followers until the Day of Judgment.

The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, “None of you has complete faith until I am more beloved to him than his parents, his children and all of mankind.” Love of the Prophet, peace be upon him, is the cornerstone of our faith. There is no limit to this love and it may be expressed in any manner in accordance with Allah’s Sacred Law (shari’a). The more we know the exalted status of Muhammad, peace be upon him, in the sight of Allah, the stronger our attachment to him will become. Whether by following his teachings and his way of life, loving what he loved, or letting the heart flow with poetry about him, we are strengthening our love of him. Islamic cultural heritage is rich with many magnificent and varied expressions of the noble love of the Prophet, peace be upon him. The Poem of the Cloak (Qasidat al-Burdah) is considered one of the best literary works expressing the love and the high status of the beloved Prophet, peace be upon him. The writer of the Poem of the Cloak, Imam Al- Busiri, said:
Leave aside what the Christians have claimed for their Prophet –
Then praise him as you like, but do so wisely.
Ascribe to his essence what you wish of honor,
Attribute to his exalted status what you will of greatness!
Truly, the Messenger of God’s bounty
Cannot be overstated by two lips and a tongue.

Praising the Prophet, peace be upon him, is thus transmitted to us through generations, every generation doing its best to preserve the heritage of love. Islamic singing (nasheed) is a means of keeping this heritage alive and vibrant in the hearts of Muslims. Pursuant to this goal, MERCY has conducted an interview with Mr. Sa’id Lazaar, a member of the up and coming Chicago nasheed group Al-Anwar Al-Muhammadiyya, on the group’s experience and on the art of praising the Prophet, peace be upon him.

To begin with, could you please introduce the group to the general public?
 

First of all, on behalf of my colleagues in the group, I would like to thank MERCY Magazine for this opportunity to communicate with the general public. The Al-Anwar Al-Muhammadiyya group was founded in the year 2000 in Chicago. It now consists of 7 members who are of Moroccan nationality. However, this does not necessarily mean that participation is limited to Moroccans. We welcome anyone who possesses the talent to join the group. The name of the group can be translated as The Light of Muhammad or The Muhammadan Lights. The name indicates the genre of the songs that we perform.

Can you bring the reader a bit closer to this type of song?
 

Well, all the songs, or nasheed in Arabic, are about the love of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the praise of the Creator. The goal of nasheed differs entirely from that of a regular song. It focuses on addressing the soul of the human being and building bridges of love between the heart of the listener and the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Nasheed usually gives a physical description of the Prophet, peace be upon him, or it describes his noble virtues, all for the purpose of strengthening our love for him, which is a major pillar of faith (iman).

Why do we need nasheed to instill the love of the Prophet, peace be upon him, in the heart? Is it not sufficient to follow his teachings, learn about his characteristics, read his biography, and so on?
 I agree that following the teachings of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and learning about his life and characteristics are essential to increase our love of him. However, we live in a world where the struggle between good and evil is taking place. Evil is doing its best to deviate mankind from guidance. Evil insinuates that the path of religion does not allow joy and happiness in life, to the point that people cannot even relax or enjoy themselves by listening to music. We, in the Al-Anwar Al-Muhammadiyya group prove such a claim to be false by competing in the musical arena and producing nasheed that is at once musically appealing, uplifting to the soul, and soundly based in the rich Islamic tradition. We use nasheed as a means of proving this accusation false and removing the veils that prevent people from seeing the faith of Islam as it truly is.
 

Even though there are so many talented nasheed groups, we still see that the majority of Muslim listeners resort to other types of songs. Why do you think that is the case?
 

Unfortunately that is true. The contribution of the Islamic nasheed needs to be backed up by other institutions that serve the same cause. We can say that the lack of tarbiya, or spiritual training, and attachment to the worldly life creates an unbalanced Muslim personality. In other words, materialism is more prominent in many Muslims than spirituality. Consequently, the listener wants to feed the dominant desire of his lower self (nafs) and disregards the needs of his soul.
 

How can Islamic nasheed assist in solving this problem?
 

Well, as I mentioned in the previous question, there should be some type of cooperation between different institutions that are trying to revive the faith of the Muslim nation (umma). Our part in the realm of music is to re-establish the proper balance between the material and the spiritual. While other types of music address and stimulate the base desires in the human being, our focus is to address what is noble and spiritually beneficial. We hope that this goal will also be a service to the larger society.
 

Can you share some of your achievements and some of the struggles that the group has faced?
 

Before I talk about our achievements, I would like to mention a very important aspect of our continued success; that is the role of one of our members. He is actually the founder of the group, brother Abdul-Haqq. He is a person who dedicated himself and spent from his own money to keep this group going and to reach where we are today. I would like to thank him for all of his efforts, as well as former members who contributed generously to laying the foundation on which we are standing today. I would also like to thank the members that will come after us because these brothers will play a very important role. We thank them and pray for them.
 

We consider all of our involvement in the Muslim community’s programs as achievements for us. We are also often involved in various mosques and communities, such as the Palestinian, Pakistani, North African and others. We were also honored by participating in various Muslim conventions in North Dakota, Seattle, North Carolina, Iowa and in our hometown Chicago. By the grace of Allah, we also perform at weddings, new birth ceremonies and other ceremonies.
 

We are thankful to Allah that we have been able to keep the group going despite some of the struggles that we are facing. Some of these struggles are connected to marketing this type of art in the U.S. and around the world in general. It is a very unique type of art that can seem strange at first to those who have only been exposed to music popular in the Western market.

We still consider ourselves an infant group, which means that we are currently depending entirely on self-funding and some donations from the events we have performed at. This money goes to airplane tickets, uniforms, instruments, and other expenses. Lack of funding is keeping us from moving to our highest level of professionalism. We believe that this group is for the entire Muslim community and we need their support, whether that be financially or through other means.

What are the goals that the group is looking forward to achieving in the coming years?
 At the present moment we are planning to switch our focus from being a local group to a national, professional group with new ideas and new songs. We are also working on making some recordings and trying to launch the group’s website. Another important step we are taking is to change the make-up of our group. Until now our members have only been Arabic-speaking but we are trying to change that by looking for new faces and discovering local talents who would be able to perform in English as well as Arabic. We hope this will be a fresh addition to the group and will attract a new audience as well. However, in order to achieve all of this we will need the continued love and support of our audience and the lovers of nasheed.

This entry was posted on April 1, 2007 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Interviews, Prophet Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him, Spring 2007 Issue, Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

| Print